


Marley and Christmases Future

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Series: Modest Proposals [8]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, F/M, Gen, M/M, the Peak District
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9002584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: Another drinks-and-nibbles party at Bent Clough begins the Christmas season....
Which sturdy Peak farmhouse is Not Haunted, Ta Ever So.
Cross-posted as a Chapter 4 of ‘In Every Universe’, where it equally belongs.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fenniferj](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenniferj/gifts), [alabamajoan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alabamajoan/gifts), [Bubba (absynthedrinker)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/absynthedrinker/gifts), [Niler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niler/gifts), [elmyraemilie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmyraemilie/gifts), [freakybb2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freakybb2/gifts), [noeon (noe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noe/gifts), [Femme (femmequixotic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmequixotic/gifts), [HealerLady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HealerLady/gifts).



> From, of course, the prompt, ‘No, the house is definitely not haunted, why do you ask?’....
> 
> As a quick search by any search engine shall reflect, I have been rather busy of late with Real Work (and just in time for the Christmas trade...). Wherefore this bit of almost-belated Christmas cheer, which serves also as an entry in the ‘In Every Universe’ series.
> 
> A very happy Christmas to all of you.
> 
> Oh: and may I add that the story of William Billinge is in fact precisely as given on his gravestone.

* * *

‘That,’ said Mr Batkin, ‘is the sort of foolish question which does incalculable damage to values in property.’

Mr Batkin, a dry, dusty, and indeed markedly Dickensian solicitor of very ripe years indeed, was inclined to be severe: indeed, to be censorious. He was the current Mr Batkin of Mortin, Critchlow, and Batkin, those impeccably correct High Street provincial solicitors who had through many generations managed, with discretion, strict probity, and punctilio, the affairs, and specially the conveyancing of property and the niceties of probate, of most of those within reach of their offices in Buxton, Longnor, and Leek.

Zayn and Liam were used to him, and rather fond of him (in Zayn’s case, precisely _because_ he was so very Dickensian), and knew his worth: no matter that his disposition, even at a pre-Christmas drinks-and-nibbles such as this, tended to be that of the skeleton at the feast.

‘I concede,’ added Mr Batkin, with more even than his usual aridity, ‘that nowadays there are persons for whom such a reputation should be rather considered as – in the unpleasing modern idiom – a “selling point” than a defect: there are a shocking number of fools in this world: but I do protest that the imputation to valuable real property of the quality of alleged “hauntedness” is mischievous and improper.’

Zayn and Liam managed to exchange a smile without moving their lips: it was the eye-crinkles sufficed to do it.

The Vicar chortled. ‘Come, come, Terence. One must distinguish. People who believe in ghosts and such phenomena, and consider them harmless or beneficent, _do,_ I imagine, pay a premium to buy a “haunted” house. People who disbelieve in such phenomena don’t care a … rap. Unless, of course, they intend to run the property as a B&B or something of the sort, charging a premium _to_ the believers. I quite agree that those who both believe in _and_ fear ghosts should be put off buying a farm, cottage, or house said to be haunted … but _are_ there any such people, really, nowadays?’

Mr Batkin – Mr Terence Batkin, poor bugger, and Liam and Zayn both carefully ignored the revelation of his Christian name whilst resolving never to use it (country districts are not commonly on such terms save amongst the most intimate of friends and kin) – sniffed. ‘There are any number of credulous persons about, my dear Vicar. And any number of those willing to impose upon and profit from their credulity.’ Mr Batkin’s tone suggested – not terribly subtly – that his own churchgoing was a social obligation of his class and position, and that such of the Vicar’s parishioners who attended Divine Service from any sense of actual conviction were amongst the credulous imposed upon and profited from.

‘You consider,’ smiled Zayn, ‘all these tales as – what? “An undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato” – with “more of gravy than of grave” about them?’

Mr Batkin looked sour enough to curdle the Christmas nibbles. ‘Oh, do oblige me, sir, by not quoting that everlasting and pestilential fool.’

Zayn suppressed a much broader smile. He had learnt long since that the most Dickensian of characters in this life were much the likeliest to despise and hate – perhaps to fear, from motives thy should never admit – Dickens.

* * *

The last of the guests had departed, leaving behind not a bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or a fragment of perfectly done potato, let alone the least bubble of champers.

Liam and Zayn, companionably, had done a rough clean-up – they’d do the serious work in the morning – and were wrapt in one another before the fire.

‘“No, the house is definitely not haunted, why do you ask?”,’ whispered Zayn, half-giggling. He had not counted to three before he felt Liam begin to shake; by the time he might have counted five, the snorts had become guffaws, and Liam was almost rolling with it, and Zayn, himself, was trying – and failing – to catch his breath as he collapsed into hilarity.

* * *

It had been their first February at Bent Clough; and Nialler, Haz, and Tommo had all come to visit. Zayn, whose love for Bent Clough was a facet of his utter adoration of Liam who’d bought it in for them as a retreat and a Peak hideaway, had rivalled Liam in looking out the history of the place and the Peak as a whole – and its folklore –, and was retailing it, with gusto, to their mates. There was the story of the Cursed Wiggin, of course (a mountain ash – a ‘wiggin’ in the local speech – to which the tale, and – in the end – the hanged body, of a highwayman was attached); and the Golden Quern of Quarnford, forever lost to reach but clearly seen in certain lights beneath the waters of the infant River Manifold: a treasure rapt from the Other Folk and dropped in flight, never again to be held by them _or_ by mortal hands; the Curious Story of the Chapman of Flash.... Liam, too, had a fund of tales already: Mr Limer’s Dancing Bear; the events of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s passage through Leek; the Tamworth sow which herded the milch-cows; the Mouselow Stones; and, of course, the Remarkable Life of William Billinge, ‘born in a Cornfield at Fawfieldhead’, who served under Rooke at the capture of Gibraltar, under Marlborough at Ramillies, for the Hanoverians in the Fifteen and the Forty-Five, and, as testified to by his gravestone in Longnor churchyard, ‘died with a space of 150 yards of where he was born and was interred here the 30 January 1791 aged 112 years’.

Louis, of course, tended to snort scoffingly, even as to such undisputed scientific curiosities as the Double Sunset (Tommo was, after all, at once unremittingly urban and bloody-mindedly a Yorkshireman); Niall, equally as a matter of course, preserved a Jesuitical attitude and scepticism above a substratum of Irish atavism (‘I don’t _believe_ in T’e Good Folk, sure, but – _Jaysus –_ I’m not fool enough to _displease_ T’im People whatever’); and, as for _Haz_....

Liam and Zayn had forgotten, in their enthusiasms, Harry’s halfwitted attraction to the otherworldly. They had forgotten, as well, that Haz was a Cheshireman, to whom the Edge and the Peak were the source of childhood tales of mystery (Zayn’s verdict was that Hazza had read too damn’ much Alan Garner, growing up).

When Haz asked, huskily, the question they ought really to have anticipated, they’d remembered all right.

‘This isn’t the bungalow,’ smiled Liam, who was trying to be kind. ‘But, I promise, Zed and I’ll go outside with a torch if we hear any half-cow-half-murderers in the night.’

* * *

Harry hadn’t been half put out, and it had been quite half an hour, that February night, before he allowed himself to be jollied out of his petulance.

The next morning was cold and still beneath a leaden sky, the snowy ground brighter far than the louring heavens.

And the very first thing Zayn and Liam found themselves having to do was reassure Harry once more. ‘No,’ repeated Zayn, doing his best to damp down his asperity, ‘the house is definitely not haunted; why do you ask?’

Harry mumbled, shook his curly head, and shoved his hosts aside to take over the Aga, and breakfast-making.

Niall had never set an alarm in his life: not with clocks at home, not with mobiles or hotel wake-up calls in their touring life. His sixth sense always woke him in time for meals.

It was expected that he appear on cue and on time now.

It was not expected that the first thing he said, with a look of owlish sincerity and some unease, was, ‘T’is house is haunted, sure.’

Liam looked concerned: not that his house was haunted, but that their guests were discommoded. (Zayn didn’t quite think they were that: he thought they’d gone mad.) Worse, Liam looked, to Zayn, as if he were feeling _guilty,_ for having included, alongside the small doings of the parish and the amusing stories of the neighbourhood, tales of black dogs and headless cavaliers and Saxon hauntings and all the rest.

And Liam’s being made to feel guilty in his own house was, in Zayn’s view, Not Fookin’ _On._

‘No, it isn’t,’ snapped Zayn. ‘Why would you even _say_ that? It’s sharn.’

Niall’s blue electric glare was adamantine. ‘Know what I heard.’

Harry had removed his attention from hob, griddle, and kettle. ‘You … heard something?’

‘I did t’at,’ said Niall, uncompromisingly. ‘Did not y’rself? A keenin’?’

Haz’ eyes were wide. ‘N- no. But I … felt something. A … cold spot. And the lights flickered.’

Liam and Zayn exchanged a long look.

* * *

When Louis had managed to trudge down to breakfast, bundled up to a really quite insulting degree and complaining of sudden chills and queer lights, the perfectly warm atmosphere had turned positively chilly.

Zayn should in all likelihood have cared not a whit had _his_ hospitality been aspersed. But the implied criticism of _Liam_ was (chorus) Not Fookin’ _On._

Liam stepped in, irenic and determined that there be no quarrels – and, being Liam, bent on getting detailed and accurate information, and fixing the problem.

‘No,’ said Louis, in curt, and (even for him at his snottiest) specially nasal, response, ‘I heard nowt o’ that. It was the lights going wonky and the sudden cold spots.’

‘ _I_ heard it,’ insisted Niall, uncompromisingly. ‘A keenin’ it was, like a _bean sí_ t’at was keenin’. And there was a gibberin’ was in it, sure, like it was one o’ Shakespeare’s ghosts, and a squeakin’. Ill luck t’ere is in t’is house, but it’s dealt wit’.’ It is the peculiar character of the Celt to be able, in the most casual conversation, to turn phrases with the oracular sound of ancient proverbs in them.

Zayn shook his head in response to Liam’s questioning look. They’d heard and felt none of this, overnight or ever, and this was the first they’d heard of it.

* * *

Mr Ogan was a very sound man, and well-respected as he well deserved, a highly regarded builder. Alfred Palfreyman was the most trusted man in three wards for electrics. Jack Bowcock’s reputation in heating and plumbing could not have been bettered, or better earnt.

But even superior tradesmen and owners of recently renovated – and heated – houses are at the mercy of the ultimate suppliers of their fittings, and, yet more, of wind and weather.

* * *

‘... t’ere was an “ooooooo” in it,’ continued Niall, ‘wit’ overtones as’d chill t’e blood of any mortal man.’

Louis and Harry were hanging upon his every word.

So – in rather a different sense and for very different reasons – were Zayn and Liam. Who exchanged a positively incredulous look.

No ancient Peak farmhouse, whether in its native state or after Georgian improvement or upon the most modern refitting and renovation, could ever be made fully soundproof as a whole, although Liam and Zayn had supervised and carefully tested the project of making that portion of the old house which had been converted to a state of the art studio as near to soundproof as damn it.

And they knew already the quirks and quiddities of how vague sounds, otherwise recognisable at once, were baffled and transformed within the house to something unlike themselves.

And they knew of old another thing as well.

* * *

After luncheon (which – like brekker, Niall’s elevenses, Niall’s snacking and grazing, and Harry’s habit of turning anyone’s kitchen into his own and making a tuck-shop of it, given ten minutes in one place – had vexed Zayn mightily with its attendant conversational dwelling upon hauntings), Liam excused himself, leaving an unwilling and unamused Zayn to entertain their old friends and bandmates. When he came back withindoors, well before tea, tools cleaned and put away properly, and he cold-nipped and rubicund and invigorated by frost and Winter weather, he was suppressing a grin, one all compound equally of pride in himself and his work, and of amusement at the credulity of his mates.

‘That’s sorted,’ said he. Zayn couldn’t help but grin – not to say, _leer: –_ Liam, competent, a man of parts, good with his hands, was an infallible turn-on for Zayn.

‘Whaa....’ Harry’s look of Adorable Puzzlement seemed to be having a similar effect upon Tommo.

‘That bit o’ ice and sleet the other day,’ said Liam, cheerily, as Zayn chafed his cold hands and handed over a mug of tea one might have bathed in. ‘Split a bolt connector with the weight, so the hot … you’re not getting a bit of this, are you. Anyroadup, the electrics are put to rights: there’ll be no flickering of lights now, or heating cock-ups.’

Tommo simply stared.

‘An’ t’e keenin’ t’at was in it?’

Liam’s smile was blindingly full-on: the full apple-cheeked, eye-crinkling, nose-scrunching one. ‘That’ll sort itself tonight, just you wait.’

* * *

Just before midnight, Liam, and a Zayn kept from grumbling only by the prospect of mischief sufficient to justify missing out on a shag and a good night’s sleep in Liam’s arms, stole down the corridor and rapped on the door to Nialler’s bedroom.

‘What is it,’ asked Niall, looking (frankly) rumpled and adorable.

‘Showtime,’ grinned Liam.

The show, as Zayn and Liam predicted, was not long in kicking off. Very faintly, but audibly enough in the guest room they’d alloted Niall, a keening could be heard, a crooning mixed with gibbering like that of the sheeted dead, revenant.

‘Did I not tell y’ t’at –’

Zayn shushed Niall, not without a certain satisfaction; and Liam, with a finger to his lips enjoining stealth and silence, led them back up the corridor, towards the guest room they’d put Haz and Tommo up in. As they neared its door, the sounds resolved themselves into much more familiar ones: the countertenor, breathy moans of Louis in the throes of passion, and, in a much higher and more head-voiced pitch than he otherwise ever used, Haz’ gasping: not ‘ooooo’, but, ‘Looouuuuu’. Sounds all too familiar from a thousand hotels to the other three, who stood there for a very brief moment, Niall red as a glede and Zayn and Liam biting their lips to keep from laughing, before the three hastened away.

‘Been too long,’ giggled Zayn, once they were safely back at Niall’s door, ‘since you were on tour with ’em?’

‘Ah, feck _aff_ –’

Liam manfully suppressed his own giggles, and said, ‘It’s a trick of the acoustics in these old houses, Nialler....’

Niall blushed, if it were possible, yet more burningly.

‘And, Niall?’ Zayn was positively smirking. ‘The squeaking? Ignore that. Because you’ll be hearing it soon.’

‘I really _do_ need to beeswax the frame on that four-poster,’ mused Liam, with that handyman’s look in his eyes which moved Zayn irresistibly to drag him away to make it squeak again before Li could get sidetracked from the infinitely more important task of shagging Zayn through the duvet.

* * *

And so, some years later, to the arrival of the Haz-and-Tommo clan and of Nialler and his brood at the drinks-and-nibbles party at Bent Clough, and to Zayn’s sarky greeting which had caused Mr Batkin to declaim upon the law of property.

‘Come in, come in,’ said Zayn, as Liam hid his giggling in his shoulder. ‘Before you ask … the place isn’t haunted.’

Age had not withered nor custom staled the quality of Louis’ glares. All was well and as it ought to be, and another Bent Clough Christmas had begun.

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Christmas, you lot.


End file.
